MP makes case for communities

Jeremy Wright MP has called for help ‘rebuilding’ Burton Green and for the HS2 tracks to be lowered to alleviate impact on residents.

He appeared before the Select Committee on Wednesday where as well as improved compensation, he called for investigations into the Crackley Gap and for costs of lowering the line to be looked into.

Criticising “scarce and sparse” communication by HS2 Ltd, he said: “I want to see the height of the line reduced, it would reduce visibility and noise and solve a lot of problems facing a lot of people.

“I don’t accept that it will be impossibly expensive to do so in at least some places, not if you offset costs of the reduced compensation needed and environmental benefits.”

“The Crackley Gap is an important piece of the Green Belt and presents a lot of engineering challenges which I am not sure have been grasped or solved at this stage.”

Highlighting Burton Green as a “special case” due to the number of houses affected, he also urged that efforts to be made to support the village school, which may be under threat if pupil numbers fall.

“We need to rebuild the village which will be so badly affected and I am asking for imaginative thinking to give something back,” he said.

Speaking on compensation measures, he called for packages to be more flexible, and to be looked at “sensibly” to ensure “clearly deserving cases” are not overlooked.

The committee will consider all petitions put to them from Kenilworth and Burton Green residents as it considers changes to the proposals.